Across China on Foot eBook

the Chinese of the old school these changes in the
habit of life infinitely old are improving nothing
and ruining much—­all is empty, vapid, useless
to God and man. The tawdry shell, the valueless
husk, of ancient Chinese life is here still, remains
untouched in many places, as will have been seen in
previous chapters; but the soul within is steadily
and surely, if slowly, undergoing a process of final
atrophy. But yet the proper opening-up of the
country by internal reform and not by external pressure
has as yet hardly commenced in immense areas of the
Empire far removed from the imperial city of Peking.
And the mere fact that the Chinese propose such an
absurd program as that which plans the building of
all their railways without the aid of foreign capital
is sufficient to react in an unwholesome manner economically.[BH][BI]

I cannot but admit that, whilst in most parts of my
journey there are distinct traces of reform—­I
speak, of course, of the outlying parts of China—­and
some very striking traces, too, and a real longing
on the part of far-seeing officials to escape from
a humiliating international position, it is distinctly
apparent that in everything which concerns Europe
and the Western world the people and the officials
as a whole are of one mind in the methods of procrastination
which are so dear to the heart of the Celestial, and
that peculiar opposition to Europeanism which has
marked the real East since the beginning of modern
history.

* * * *
*

And now lovely, lovely Burma!

I had not been in Burma two minutes before the very
box containing the clothes into which I must change
before I could enter into the social life of Bhamo
swung from the broken pole of one of my coolies, and
rolled rapidly towards the river. It was recovered
after great trouble.

Thick jungle land lay out before me, fleecy clouds
in the dense blue sky hung lazily over the green hills,
the heavy air was pregnant with that delicious ease
known only in the tropics—­all was still
and sweet. The river flowed grandly from the
interior through magnificent forest country, receiving
on either shore the frequent tribute of other minor
streams, and its banks were marvelous cliffs of jungle—­tangles
of giant trees on crowding underwood, clinging vine
and festooning parasite—­rising sheer from
the water’s brink. Now long clusters of
villages, deep in the shade of palm and fruit trees;
now wide expanses of grass-grown meadow, where the
grazing grounds dip to the river, and where the only
echoes of China are the resting pack-horse caravans—­the
banks cut into huge trampled clefts by the passage
of the kine trooping down to drink. Occasional
wooded islands broke the monotony of the river, and
were just discernible from the magnificent English
roads which skirted the hills high up from the river,
and yellow sandspits and big wedges of granite and
rock ran far out into its uneven course. By day